‘So the mail goes from the post office straight to where it’s addressed?’
‘No.’ An exasperated sigh.
‘Really?’ Dougie’s voice was incredulous. Worst. Actor. Ever. ‘I always imagined that’s what happened.’
‘No, it goes to the sorting office first,’ said Dad, as he turned over the soil with his fork.
‘And that’s where the postmen sort it?’
Another grunt from Dad. ‘Clue’s kind of in the name, Dougie.’
‘Yeah.’ Awkward chuckles. ‘Fascinating.’
‘Sheila,’ Dad called, clearly wanting to escape the exhausting chat, ‘how are you getting on with that cordial? A man could die of thirst!’
I brought my attention back to the busted mountain bike. My smile faded. I had been cycling to Dougie’s house that night, keen to gloat with the news that I’d stolen a kiss from Lucy Carpenter, the girl I’d fancied from afar throughout high school. I never saw the car that hit me. It came from behind, out of nowhere, the bike and I crumpling with the impact. The next thing I recalled was waking up at the General Hospital. Only I wasn’t waking up in a physical sense. Seeing my dead body lying there on a trolley in A&E had been a big fat clue that I’d shuffled off my mortal coil. Since then, I’d been learning how to control my powers, as well as coming to terms with being a ghost.
‘Here you go, Geoff!’ Mum called. I heard ice cubes tinkling in the cordial as she approached. Was there ever a nicer sound on a hot summer day? We were in the middle of a heatwave, not that I’d have known. I was cursed to wear the clothes I’d died in: winter coat and Doctor Who scarf (knitted by Mum) trailing down to my feet.
I stepped through the shed walls, out into brilliant sunlight. Dougie caught my eye instantly, sandwiched as he was between my folks as the tall glasses of juice were handed out. He took one gratefully.
‘A lovely refreshing drink for you hardworking chaps,’ said Mum, happy to be fussing them.
‘If talking incessantly counts as hard work then Douglas must be parched,’ said Dad, a wink breaking the barb of his comment.
‘So how are you doing, young man?’ asked my mum, ruffling Dougie’s hair as he supped at his juice. ‘It’s been too long since we’ve seen you, Douglas. What’s happening?’
It was never going to be easy for my mate to return here. It was no secret how close he and I had been in life. He was as dear to me as my own family and, for many years, Mum treated him as an extended part of our little clan. I often joked that he was the brother I’d never had – this had often just been to get a rise out of my actual brother, Ben, who was a couple of years my senior. This often led to a dead arm, but was always worth it.
‘I’m good, thanks, Mrs Underwood. It’s been a busy year at school.’
‘How’s that going?’
‘Well, thanks. As in all subjects except for the D in Art.’
‘Ooh, that’s great news,’ said Mum, patting Dad’s shoulder and causing him to spill his cordial. ‘Isn’t that great news, Geoff?’
Another grunt from Dad, part acknowledgement, part irritation. Of course, the upturn in Dougie’s grades hadn’t been on account of his hard graft. Academically, it had proved beneficial for him to have me hovering over his shoulder like some ghostly Google app. I’d always worked hard at school and, team that we were, I passed on what I knew to him. Alas, even I couldn’t help him with Art. There were preschoolers with better fine motor skills and mark-making ability.
‘And how’s your dad?’ said Mum. Dougie flinched, imperceptible to my folks but I saw it. ‘I haven’t seen George in forever.’
‘He’s really well,’ Dougie lied. ‘Busy with work.’ Since we’d bumped into Mr Bradbury in town, a cloud had gathered over my friend’s head. It was clear he wanted to speak to his dad about the man.
‘Is he still driving?’
Dougie polished off the drink, eyes fixed on me.
‘Yes, mate,’ I said to him with a nod. ‘We can go. I’m done.’
Dougie wiped his arm across his mouth, handing the glass back to Mum and completely dodging her last question. ‘Thanks for the drink, Mrs Underwood. Appreciate it.’
‘Don’t be a stranger, Douglas,’ she said, giving him a big hug. ‘Will may be gone, but that doesn’t change how we feel about you. Isn’t that right, Geoff?’
Dad smiled and reluctantly nodded. To be fair, he was the same with me when I was alive. It had always been tricky coaxing a conversation from him. That wasn’t to say he didn’t love me, and I don’t doubt for a minute he was still fond of Dougie.
‘It’s been lovely to see you, Douglas,’ said Mum as she escorted Dougie up the garden and down the path beside the house. ‘Do pass our best wishes to your dad.’
‘I shall, Mrs Underwood,’ he said as she opened the gate. I leaned into Mum, kissing her lightly on the cheek. Whether I consciously used the push or not, I can’t say, but she brushed her fingertips across her face.
Dougie set off down the street, saluting her as we went, whispering to me all the while. She continued waving, as was her way, at least until Dougie was out of sight. ‘You took your merry time in there.’
I waved to Mum too. Silly, as she couldn’t see me, but old habits die hard. ‘It’s nice to go back and see they’re doing so well. They kept the bike, you know?’
‘Good on ’em. It’s the least they can do since they turned your box room into a multi-gym. I love them and everything, but I’m glad to be out of there.’
‘Don’t worry, I’m not planning on dragging you back every week.’
‘Twice a year is more than enough. Listening to your dad drone on is torturous. The United Nations should investigate him.’
‘Seemed to me it was you doing all the talking!’
‘Were you listening to a different conversation to me? Did you hear him bang on about the post office? Watching paint dry is more thrilling.’
We walked on to Dougie’s house in fine spirits, laughing and joshing, but as we passed the graveyard and turned down his street, there was a noticeable deceleration in his pace. His strut transformed into a shambling trudge, his mood darkening, that familiar feeling leaking out of him and into me. Our connection never failed, each of us sensing the other’s emotions, no secrets to hide. I sensed his trepidation as we approached his home, pausing momentarily outside the empty drive. We could hear the television’s din within, its volume woefully high. What the neighbours thought of Mr Hancock I dreaded to think.
‘He’s in then,’ I said.
‘He’s always in,’ said Dougie, walking up to the front door and entering the house. ‘I’m home, Dad,’ he called over the noise, stopping by the glass-panelled door into the lounge.
‘Hang on, son,’ came the voice from within, rough and weary. We both heard the clinking of glass as his old man quickly tried to hide whatever bottles he’d been drowning in. Drinking in the day came as no surprise to us. We could see him moving through the mottled glass, reaching around the side of his armchair. Dougie rolled his eyes, pushing the door open, fed up of the pantomime.
Mr Hancock smiled from his seat, though his eyes told a different tale. They were bloodshot and watery, his face unshaven, and he’d been wearing those clothes since the previous week. I walked past, invisible to Dougie’s dad, catching the empty brown and green bottles that had been stashed behind the armchair. The floor was littered with unopened bills and letters, the living room a pigsty.
‘You having a bite to eat, son?’ he asked, half-heartedly threatening to rise from his seat.
‘I ate with Andy in town, thanks.’ This was sadly typical of his father to be unaware of his movements, including where he got his last meal. ‘You want anything? A cup of tea? Food?’
‘I’m alright, Douglas,’ said Mr Hancock, sniffing his nose and scratching his scrawny stomach. ‘I’m not really hungry at the mo. May get something later.’
‘Later?’ I said. ‘You know he hasn’t eaten today, Dougie.’
‘Le
t me make you some cheese on toast, Dad,’ said my mate, clearly concerned for his father’s welfare. ‘It’s not a problem.’
There had been a steady decline in Mr Hancock’s well-being over the last year. It was heart-breaking to see. My earliest memories of him, when we were little, was of a cheery chap who would do anything for his son. Somehow, he’d begun to full apart recently. Miserable in his job, he’d all but jacked in driving for Mr Bradbury as far as we could tell, drinking away his sorrows at home. The pills he took to help him sleep were a great cause for concern, Dougie felt, and understandably so, in light of the booze. Mr Hancock never went out, never socialised, never invited his friends to call by. The man had become a recluse.
‘No, son, really,’ said Mr Hancock. ‘I’m fine. Where’ve you been, then?’
‘I already said, Dad. To town with Andy.’ Irritation in his voice.
‘Steady, mate,’ I said, my voice a whisper even though his father couldn’t hear me.
‘Right, yes, so you did. You need to get out and meet girls, Douglas. That’s what you need to do.’
Dougie looked at me. I’d witnessed this exact conversation many times in recent months. Mr Hancock had been told time and time again that Dougie was seeing Lucy, but it was pointless discussing it when he’d been drinking. It went in through one ear and out the other. My friend just shrugged, shaking his head. As for Dougie’s girlfriend, that’s something else I’d forgotten to mention. That girl who I’d loved from afar right through school, the one I’d stolen a kiss from the night I’d died? Lucy Carpenter. That’s right. My best mate was now seeing her. I know. Some guys have all the luck.
‘See you later, Dad,’ said Dougie, slouching out of the room and down the hall. I watched him trudge upstairs, head bowed.
‘Now probably not the best time to ask him about Bradbury?’ I said.
‘Maybe wait until he’s sober,’ he replied, ‘whenever that might be.’
There was little I could say. I followed.
THREE
Past and Present
‘Get outta town, Sparky! Best gangster movie? Angels With Dirty Faces, every day of the week!’
‘Have a word with yourself, Yank,’ said Dougie, dismissing our friend with a wave of the hand. ‘The Godfather is the best.’
‘Jimmy Cagney!’
‘Al Pacino!’
‘Jim-mee Cag-nee!’
‘Al Pa-chee-no!’
This was how conversations often went between Dougie and the Major, inevitably descending into a slanging match. It could have been a number of things that brought them to loggerheads. Perhaps it was the age difference. Maybe it was the cultural chasm, with the Major being American. More than likely, the biggest difference was: one was alive, the other a ghost. As always, I was torn, unable and unwilling to take sides. I grinned as a couple of nurses walked by across the hospital lawn, looking our way with concern.
‘It’s no good talkin’ to you, Sparky,’ said the Major. ‘You get too emotional, shouting and making a scene.’
‘You’re shouting too!’ said Dougie, defensively.
‘Ah, yes,’ grinned the airman’s ghost. ‘But they can’t see me, can they? You’re the crazy son-of-a-gun sat on the grass yelling at himself. Making me the winner.’
Dougie grumbled as I chuckled. ‘Whatever. You’re the loser as you’ve never seen The Godfather.’
‘And probably never will,’ sighed the Major. ‘The drawback of haunting a hospital and not a movie theatre.’
We had first encountered the phantom American last autumn, when our friend Stu Singer had ended up in hospital after a fall from the Upper School building. I say ‘fall’: he was pushed, by our headmaster, who it transpired was a sadistic, murdering nutcase. That was all in the past now, Stu well on the road to recovery, and Mr Goodman dead and gone. The girl who he’d killed had been haunting an old school house, and it was she who had first taught me how to control my powers. Phyllis had been her name, and she’d opened my eyes to the possibilities haunting offered up. She vanished when Goodman died, leaving Dougie and me to seek out the Major for further guidance. It transpired the Major was a pesky soul, Dougie often the target of his mischief.
‘I’m just kidding with ya, Sparky,’ said the airman, punching Dougie’s shoulder with a ghostly fist. He’d taught me the same trick, much to my friend’s annoyance.
‘Quit it,’ snapped Dougie. ‘That is so not cool.’
‘So what do you guys have planned? You got the whole summer ahead of you. What do kids do round here? You got a beach house to head to? Catch some surf and rays?’
‘Beach house?’ I laughed. ‘Nearest beach is the Mersey. And catching rays? You’d more likely catch blood poisoning.’
‘I keep forgetting your British summers are different to real ones,’ said the Major.
The Major was coy, never telling us his real name, but he’d been haunting the General Hospital since the 1940s. Like me, he was stuck in the clothes he’d died in, and he hadn’t got around to explaining the circumstances of his death either. Across the left breast of his uniform a string of multicoloured pips revealed his rank. He was actually a captain, but Dougie and I had never let details stand in the way of a good nickname. ‘Major’ had stuck. When not hidden by his US Air Force dress cap, his jet-black quiff was slicked back over his head, topping off his movie-star good looks. As officers went, he was fresh-faced to have been made a captain, but wars, deaths and field promotions will do that.
‘So tell me,’ said the Major. ‘What brought my favourite double-act here today? I wasn’t expecting you until the weekend.’
Dougie kindly visited the hospital each Saturday, allowing me the opportunity to spend time with the Major. Dougie would watch on while the American talked me through what he knew, passing on tips and sharing his thoughts. We discussed everything, from how I’d ended up a ghost, the other spirits we’d seen or encountered, and what might have stopped me from moving on. The Major’s ideas were just that: ideas. Neither of us had received an instruction book when we had become ghosts, although with Dougie’s help we were doing a fine job of writing one. My friend would take notes on what we discovered, compiling a Rules of Ghosting handbook in the process.
Dougie reached into the back pocket of his jeans and pulled out a crumpled sheet of newspaper. He unfolded it, straightening it out, before laying it out on the grass before us.
‘Ah,’ said the Major, the spring taken out of his step. ‘Way to ruin a guy’s day, Sparky.’
We all looked at the headline: AIRBASE TO BE DEMOLISHED. This was where the Major had been stationed during the Second World War, one of many Yanks who had briefly made my sleepy little town in the north-west of England their home.
‘What does this mean for you?’ I asked.
‘I’ve no idea,’ said the Major. ‘We’ve spent so long talking about what’s keeping you here, in the land of the living, that we’ve given little thought to my own predicament.’
‘Maybe that’s it,’ said Dougie. ‘Perhaps when the old base finally gets bulldozed you’ll be on your way?’
‘You’re all heart, kid. There could be some truth in that. I left some memories there, for sure . . .’
He drifted off for a moment, his mood melancholic. This wasn’t like the Major at all. He was usually wisecracking, playing pranks and generally goofballing. Dougie and I shared a look of concern. The Yank was often evasive when his past came up, but he’d never fallen silent before.
‘Should we head over there?’ I asked. ‘Is there something you’d like us to retrieve? After all, I think that’s why I’m still here, to help people out, whatever their mortal state.’
The Major snapped out of it, a grin back on his face in a flash. ‘I thought it was your bromance with Sparky here that kept you spooking about?’
‘For the umpteenth time,’ Dougie sighed. ‘It’s not a bromance. We’re mates, that’s all.’
‘Mates with a beautiful, special, supernatural bond, eh?’ sa
id the Major, grinning impishly. ‘Yeah, I got you two down pat!’
‘So that’s a negatory on visiting the airbase?’ said Dougie, not allowing him to wriggle off the hook as he’d done so many times before.
The Major stood and straightened his uniform. It was the strangest thing watching a ghostly man, glowing pale blue, dusting himself down.
‘Don’t sweat it, kid. I’m good. It’s this place I’m bound to, right? The hospital’s my home. There’s nothing for me at the base any more.’
‘But what do you do here?’ asked Dougie. ‘As far as I can tell you stand at the entrance like a sentry. Hardly seems productive. The Lamplighter, however, haunts the railway station. His job’s pretty clear: he scares the crap out of anyone who gets close.’
I shivered at mention of the Lamplighter, the only other spirit we’d encountered. Dougie and I had found ourselves on the platform late one night. A crooked killer’s spectre that oozed wickedness, the Lamplighter had left me fearful for my life. Quite a trick, considering I was already dead.
‘The Lamplighter’s an old-fashioned malevolent spirit, tied to the scene of his crimes,’ said the Major. ‘Springheeled Jack for a new generation.’
‘Exactly. He has a job description,’ said Dougie. ‘Even Will seems to have a purpose. He haunts the heck out of me, follows me around like a loveless, lonely, lost, little puppy that’s been kicked up the butt.’
‘Cheers for that.’
‘You’re welcome.’
‘You’re tied to the hospital,’ I said, picking up my pal’s thread. ‘But why? I haunt Dougie. The Lamplighter haunts the station. Why do you haunt the hospital?’
Haunt Dead Wrong Page 2
